


To Err Is Human, As The Poet Said (All That You Are)

by WolfieOnAO3



Series: All That You Are [4]
Category: Raffles (TV 1977), Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Bad Poetry, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Insecure Bunny, M/M, Moody Raffles, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Softness, Sweetness, True Love, unabashed sappiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24615775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfieOnAO3/pseuds/WolfieOnAO3
Summary: You make mistakes sometimes; we all do, Bunny. To err is human, as the poet said. The Gods know that I make far more than my own fair share of mistakes! And in this instance you are far from at fault -- even if you were I wouldn't consider that sufficient to deem you useless, my dear chap. Good Lord, if I only had ten more like you--!’ He smiled again as his gaze flickered over my face. ‘But, then, one rabbit really is more than sufficient. And far more than I deserve.’
Relationships: Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles
Series: All That You Are [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/956619
Comments: 13
Kudos: 17





	To Err Is Human, As The Poet Said (All That You Are)

**Author's Note:**

> \-- _"I love you for all that you are."_ I heard someone say this, recently, and it was so sweet that I feel compelled to use it as a prompt to write a little series of short stories for the various fandoms and relationships that I love so much. --
> 
> ....Reviving this very, very ancient prompt series, to add Raffles and Bunny to the list. Because _how can I not?_
> 
> Honestly? I just needed some fluff to cheer myself up. It's like that, sometimes. SorryNotSorry. Pahahaha!

Raffles was pacing.

This was not unusual for Raffles; that active mind of his always seemed to work best when his body was similarly in motion, and I was well used to it. His sporadic thumping of the desk, bookcase, or wall whilst on his circle around his living room was, however, somewhat off-putting.

He was not in a good mood.

A plan which he had been working on for the past month -- I won’t go over all of the details, as they became in the end irrelevant as we were never able to act upon them -- had fallen through. Suffice it to say that several small, yet as it turned out pivotal, players in an increasingly and uncharacteristically convoluted plot had turned out to be utterly unreliable, and the whole thing had ended up a complete disaster from start to finish. And now Raffles was caught in a cycle of ever-increasing irritation, as he grew first angry with the individuals who proved untrustworthy or incompetent, and then with himself for being, as he put it, “fool enough to think he could place even the tiniest scrap of trust in anyone else”, and finally at the world as a whole for being so full of “brain-dead idiots.”

This was all compounded by the fact that we were on our way to becoming quite uncomfortably hard up. As the majority of his concentration of late had been funnelled into this lost cause, we would have to begin, practically speaking, once again from square one. On top of all of this, the month was February; a season for neither crime nor cricket. Our prospects at present were as bright as the fog-smothered skies outside of the Albany’s windows.

The mood of the room was not what one might call _pleasant_. Twice I had suggested I leave, and twice he had dismissed the idea, yet he would not speak to me; in fact he barely even acknowledged my presence at all. And so I remained sitting on his sofa, paying half a mind to a book I’d pulled from one of his many bookshelves, and half a mind to him, losing my place in the text every time he growled under his breath or tested some unsuspecting piece of furniture with a swift and irritated kick. 

It was, then, with some surprise that I at length found myself being directly addressed.

‘Bunny, if I’m ever such an _idiot_ to trust _anything_ to another human being _ever_ again, I give you permission to pinch my ears and twist my wrists until I think better of it. They really are the most insufferably inconstant of creatures.’

‘Well, Raffles,’ I said in a tone I hoped was more placating than accusatory, ‘you didn’t exactly _trust_ any of those people in the first place. The footman was paid via three near-untraceable proxies for his information, I wouldn’t quite call that _trust_ \--’

‘No. No, no, _n_ _o!_ I've been a fool, Bunny. From now on, everything stays in _my_ hands, in _my_ control _directly._ As soon as you introduce _variables_ the very foundation of the thing begins to weaken. I thought I was being so _clever_ , too, getting all of those separate fences to deal with each other on my behalf, each thinking the other was the true man in charge. Of _course_ it went wrong, of _course_! It was inevitable, Bunny! _I’m an idiot!’_

‘You did keep us watertight, though, A.J.,’ I consoled. ‘Yes, the job didn’t come off, but we weren’t anywhere near the trouble.’

Raffles threw his hands up and shook his head dismissively, as if this point were a mere irrelevance. I may as well have said _“Well, at least it didn’t rain.”_

‘Safe? Safe and penniless, Bunny, what good is that? Safe and made _fools_ of! Those diamonds should have been as good as mine, and now where are they? With that _scoundrel_ Haversly -- and don’t think for a _moment_ he earned a single _one_ of them, Bunny! The man is a cheat, and a thief by any measure but that of the law. He’s as far from being a sportsman as I am a Saint. Those stones were mine by _right_ for all the effort I put in, all the _work_ \-- Ah, but there’s the rub, isn’t it, rabbit? I got lazy. Lazy and stupid. If I had gone in by myself instead of trying to be _clever--_ hah! Clever! Never have I been more _stupid_. You are always on at me, Bunny, to be less suspicious, to _trust_ more -- let this be a lesson to you and me both that one can never rely on anyone but himself!’ 

He spoke with a tone addressed to the walls more than to me, but his words cut me to the quick. I had long resented Raffles’ closeness, that inveterate suspicion and stubborn independence that existed in him, whether there first by nature or by nurture. That was bad enough. But now it seemed that this loss was to be laid at _my_ feet! That my trusting nature and my encouragement of Raffles to adopt a little of it for his own was what had led him into this state of utter devastation… I didn’t know whether I felt more guilty or more stupid, but in combination the two left me feeling predominantly angry.

After he had completed several more laps of the room with no further attention paid to me than to his Indian rug, I decided that, as my presence was clearly doing no good, I was going to leave.

I stood and headed for the door, hesitating only to catch Raffles’ reaction, of which there was none, before moving to snatch up my hat and coat. It was only when my hat was on my head and my coat halfway over my shoulders that Raffles looked up.

‘What are you doing? Are you going?’

‘I am.’

‘Do you have plans elsewhere?’

‘Yes, I have plans elsewhere!’ I snapped. ‘I have plans to be somewhere my presence doesn’t seem to further inconvenience _you_!’

‘What are you talking about now?’ he replied with a rather irritated sigh.

‘I am sorry if I made everything go wrong, Raffles, but if I did, I didn’t mean to. I refuse to sit and listen to you _berate_ me and complain as though I’m not even here. Think what you like of me, but don’t expect me to stick around and hear it.’

His brow furrowed. ‘Bunny, I have no idea what you're talking about. If you could speak in clearer riddles, it would be greatly appreciated.'

I could feel my cheeks burning hot, and knew without glancing in the glass that my face would be glowing pink. That only made me more annoyed.

‘It’s my fault that everything went wrong, clearly -- in your opinion if not in truth! You always-- You never-- It’s me that is always going on at you to-- to _trust_ me more, and then when you do, when you give me the task of -- _liaising_ with the second fence, everything goes wrong! Well, it was _your_ plan, not mine, Raffles, and if you ask me it’s damned unfair for me to catch all the blame when it goes to Hell. Well, fine, then! See if I care. Don’t trust me. I’ve clearly proven all of your suspicions correct; I'm a liability and not to be trusted. Fine!’

Far from it’s intended outcome, my outburst had drawn a curious smile to Raffles’ otherwise sullen face. He took a slow drag of his cigarette, exhaling a neat blue ring of smoke before he spoke. ‘What an imagination the boy has,’ he said with a low chuckle. ‘You really are endlessly surprising, Bunny.’

‘Go ahead, laugh at me. I’m sure you always are, anyway,’ I growled, making a hash of doing up my coat in my aggravated state.

Tutting and moving my hands aside, Raffles unfastened my incorrectly buttoned coat. As he did so, he spoke. ‘Bunny mine, you have the most remarkable ability to fix upon the exact wrong point in any given argument, do you know that? How on earth you could contrive to make anything in this situation _your_ fault is-- Well. You certainly have a rare talent for self-deprecation. It goes so far to almost border on the hubristic, in fact. It’s really quite fascinating. But even so, it must stop, Bunny, as must your terrible habit of persisting in your belief that I don’t trust you.’

‘Raffles, you just this very minute said that-- that the only person a man can trust is himself! You can’t now turn around and act as though--’

Raffles cut me off with a hand on my shoulder and a click of his tongue against his teeth. ‘Not _you_ , my good rabbit. As far as trust is concerned, I trust you _as_ myself -- in certain areas, a good deal _more_ than myself.’ He smiled at me in an irresistibly affectionate way, dissipating my irritation like fog in the sun. ‘I do feel honour-bound to add that I don’t I always trust myself entirely, but still. The sentiment is there, wouldn’t you say?’

‘But I let you down…’ I persisted, mumbling the words, reluctant to speak them but unable to not. ‘Not just this time, but _all_ the time. I’m hopeless. _Useless_.’

He pouted sympathetically, and just a touch mockingly. ‘Poor rabbit! You don’t really believe that, do you?’

‘It’s true,’ I muttered.

Raffles shook his head. ‘Not in the least. And even if you had let me down -- which you haven't, by the way -- what of it? You make mistakes sometimes; we all do, Bunny. To err is human, as the poet said. The Gods know I make a fair share of my own. And in this instance you are far from at fault -- even if you were I wouldn't consider that sufficient to deem you _useless,_ my dear chap. Good Lord, if I only had ten more like you--!’ He smiled again as his gaze flickered over my face. ‘But, then, one rabbit really is more than sufficient. And far more than I deserve.’

Somehow my coat was now back on the hook, and A.J.’s arms were around my waist. Not that I was complaining.

‘You aren’t cross with me?’ I asked, looking up into his bright grey eyes as they smiled down at me.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not even a little bit.’

‘Oh.’

‘But the more salient question is whether _you_ are cross with _me_?’

‘I’m an ass,’ I sighed, shaking my head. 'I don’t think I was cross with you at all, A.J., I just feel so damned _guilty_ whenever you’re unhappy, as if it’s my fault somehow. Either for being the direct cause of the problem, or for not being able to help you fix it. I feel so useless when I can’t do anything to cheer you up. When I can’t do anything to help.’

‘Can’t do anything to help? My dear rabbit, you _always_ help me, just by being with me. Just by _existing_!’ He pushed a lock of my hair behind my ear and smiled. ‘Look, see this smile? All down to you. Everything becomes one hundred times more tolerable because of you. It’s the difference between getting bad news outside in the rain whilst being kicked by a gang of ruffians, versus getting it in the sunshine with a cold glass of lemonade and fifty pounds in your pocket. Does that clarify matters at all, my good rabbit?’

I had to admit that it did.

‘You’re saying I’m not _entirely_ useless, then...?’ I asked, innocently. By this point Raffles had entirely won me over with his sweet, sincere, and reassuring words, but I saw no reason why that should stop me from shamelessly fishing for further compliments. He was so good at giving them, after all. ‘I do have _some_ merits? Some aspects worth liking?’

‘Incorrigible!’ he snapped at me, laughing and pulling me closer. ‘All right then, if that’s what you want: O Bunny, Bunny mine, how many ways do I love thee? Let me count the ways! I love thee more than diamonds, pure and bright, thou art rarer and more beautiful than that tiara we ought to have stolen last Wednesday night! I love thee freely, as we take from locked safes; I love thee with the passion put to use in evading Scotland Yarders as they give hopeless chase; I love thee to--’

I cut him off with a kiss. ‘You’re a terrible poet, A.J.’

‘Mm, stick to the day job, is that what you’re saying? Ah! But see there? Yet another thing I need my rabbit for. You’ll have to crib my verses for me, in future.’

‘Write love poems to myself?’ I laughed.

‘Well, on my behalf,’ he said as he weaved his arm through mine and led me back into the sitting room. ‘We’ll put my name to them, of course. Then I can read them back to you and you can fall upon my neck, overcome by tender emotion.’

‘Act as both Cesario _and_ Olivia to your Orsino, is that it?’

‘My thoughts exactly.’

‘You aren’t concerned I might fall in love with myself in the writing?’

‘My dear rabbit, I could hope for nothing better! Then perhaps you will finally see yourself as _I_ see you; for _all_ that you are. And then you might get it into that thick rabbit skull of yours that _I love_ _you_ _for all that you are_.’

There was nothing I could think to say to that. There was nothing I could think to say, at _all_. Thinking in itself had suddenly become something of a challenge. 

I blinked at him.

‘You all right there, Bunny?’

‘I-- I think I’m going to have to kiss you now, Raffles’ I said.

‘Are you?’

‘I think so.’

‘You aren’t still planning on leaving, then?’

‘No. No, I think I’ll-- I think I’ll not do that, actually.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

He smiled down at me with the smile that I loved best, and the last surviving thoughts in my head -- predominantly concerned with how unfathomably lucky I was and how perfectly perfect _he_ was -- swooned into a dead faint.

‘...Bunny?’

‘Hm? Yes! Sorry? What?’

‘About that kiss…?’


End file.
